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The claim that Obama is a Muslim vanished from public view quickly, but persists in chain e-mails.
AP Photo

When Fox News aired a report in January claiming that Sen. Barack Obama had been educated at a radical Muslim madrassa, his campaign beat the story back — hard — with the candidate himself going on television to call it “ludicrous” and a “smear.”

And his aggressive defense worked, or so it seemed at the time: The notion that Obama has secret Muslim roots faded from the mainstream media, and even from most conservative blogs and magazines.

But rather than vanish, the whispered smear campaign appears to have gone underground, and in its purest form: Obama himself, according to a pair of widely circulated anonymous e-mails, is a Muslim.

“Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background,” warns an e-mail titled “Who Is Barack Obama,” that was circulating in South Carolina political circles this summer and sent to Politico by a South Carolina Democrat.

“The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out; what better way to start than at the highest level?”

“Please forward to everyone you know,” it ended.

The other widely forwarded e-mail is titled “Can a good Muslim become a good American” and answers that question in the negative, before concluding: “And Barack Hussein Obama, a Muslim, wants to be our president!!!”

The misinformation is buttressed by occasional winks from conservative pundits like Ed Rogers, who referred to the candidate as “Barack Hussein Obama” and radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, who regularly includes the senator's otherwise little-used middle name.

(Shock jock Michael Savage did him one better, according to the liberal media monitor Media Matters, calling the senator “Hussein Barack Obama.”)

Road to Christianity

Obama, in fact, is not a Muslim.

The assertion that he is one is based on his paternal ancestry from a Muslim family in Kenya, his living in Indonesia with a Muslim stepfather and, briefly, as a child, attending a public school there which reportedly offered some religious instruction to its predominantly Muslim study body.

But he was raised primarily by his mother, who eschewed organized religion.

> He has written and spoken at length about his path to Christianity and the black church as a community organizer in Chicago.

In recent months, Obama has been talking more openly about his faith, especially in the South.

He has worshipped at three large South Carolina churches over the past two Sundays. Last weekend, he raised eyebrows at the Redemption World Outreach Center in Greenville by saying he was “confident that we can create a kingdom right here on Earth."

Indeed, on www.snopes.com — the site that fashions itself as the place where urban legends go to die — there is a lengthy page devoted to debunking the myth that Obama is a “radical, ideological Muslim” that includes a reference to a 2004 Chicago Sun-Times story where he talks of his “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Obama’s aides are aware of the theme, but it’s far harder to respond to faceless whispers than to open assertions.

“We've got to be vigilant to knock down any untruth out there about us,” said spokesman Bill Burton.

Popular, but wrong

It’s hard to directly measure the impact of chain e-mails which circulate beneath the radar.

But there are at least two indications that the whispers are being heard.

First, “barack obama muslim” is the third most popular Google search for the presidential candidate's name, behind “barack obama” and “barack obama biography,” according to Google Suggest, which tracks the frequency of word searches.

Second, a CBS News poll in August found that, in response to an open-ended question about Obama’s faith, 7 percent of Americans identified him as a Muslim — more than any other response. The right answer, Protestant, was second at 6 percent. (Most didn’t know or wouldn’t say.)

Underscoring this data, Politico has been alerted to both the e-mails and the persistent rumor numerous times by multiple sources, most of whom work outside politics.

This guy IS a Muslim. Any person fathered by a Muslim is a Muslim; the Qur'an makes this so. The Sharia Doctrine permits lying, deception; so long as the ultimate objective of doing Allah's will is sought. Let him continue spreading his lies. He's unelectable anyway, not just because he's a Muslim, but because he is just an empty suit pumped up by the media.

Looks like the Queen of the "politics of personal destruction's" been busy. Funny how the Democrats talk about their 'tolerance", and then use their lack of it to smear one of their own. Religion being used as a pretext to smear their fellow Americans by Democrats. Who'd a "thunk" it? Maybe he should start carrying a HUGE Bible with a big cross on it under his arm, like the former Democrat POTUS did when his wife's insistence that he not settle with Paula Jones caused Ken Starr to take a look at him.

Wayno, you can't seriously be talking anything about "politics of personal destruction's".. When your party has the corner market on it. Please! Talk to Georgie and Rove about what they did to their "own" back in 2000!!! I was a MCcain fan back then and would have voted for him in 2000. But the "politics of personal destruction's" was taken to new levels back then, so really... you have absolutely NO room to scold democrats on this. Haha!!!!

Nobody but haters like Rush, Coulter and Glenn Beck thinks voters fall for this particular brand of horsesh!t anymore. After "swiftboating" John Kerry a dozen different ways only to find out it was all %100 lies, well, the people just aren't that stupid.

I for one would readily consider a Muslim president who would have the cultural comprehension necessary to make something good happen in a difficult part of the world for once. We've tried a troglodyte, delusionanal, incompetent Christian, and the level of wholesale disaster has been more than obvious.

This whisper campaign is potentially harmful to Obama, but I think they have done a decent job fighting it back. I wonder what are the motivations of those spreading the lies? Garden variety racism? Being on the Clinton payroll? Who knows? We have no proof. There is a lot of irony here though. Whatever their motivations, most likely the people trying to smear Obama agreed with Bush's and Clinton's decisions to back off of fighting Bin Laden in Afghanistan (who was responsible for 9/11) and instead divert resources to Iraq (which had nothing to do with 9/11). And they are probably folks who criticized Obama saying we need to be tough on pakistan and afghanistan and take out bin laden no matter what Musharraf says. These folks might want to answer why is Obama "the Muslim" is tougher on Bin Laden than they are.

dieldrin: There is no proof that Obama's father adhered to the five pillars of the Islamic faith. However there is proof that he rejected Islam and became an atheist. Also, you are confusing ethnicity with religion. There are secular Muslims just as there are secular Jews none of whom practice the religion. It is like an American atheist celebrating Xmas or Ester. In fact, most Christians in America don't practice the faith being, for the most part, religiously illiterate.

The hate- and fearmongers are at it again, fueled, no doubt, by patriots such as Coulter, Limbaugh, Beck et al. What a country we've become. I wonder who'll be next on the hit list. It must surely be Gen. Ricardo Sanchez for speaking out about the incredible Iraq catastrophe. Damned phony soldier. On the other hand, perhaps they can find another 12-year-old kid to crucify.

Looks like the Queen of the "politics of personal destruction's" been busy. Funny how the Democrats talk about their 'tolerance", and then use their lack of it to smear one of their own. Religion being used as a pretext to smear their fellow Americans by Democrats. Who'd a "thunk" it?

Who'd a "thunk it"? Only you and the brand of reich wing-follow George the idiot to hell as long as he says so, crowd. That's the 30% that likes to keep knocking their heads against the wall..

John Kerry swiftboated? All he has to do is to release his service records and prove them wrong, or could it be that his service records would in fact prove them right? Do you suppose that might have something to do with why he's never released them? He would have won the presidency had he revealed the truth, right? He owed it to his lemming followers to release the information to prove the swiftboaters were lying, if they were. Why didn't he? He would have saved America by winning the presidency. He would have cleared his name. He would have justified his followers. Any honorable serviceman would have been proud to release information to back up what he has publicly claimed, if it was true.

Prior to his crucifixion, Jesus gave a discourse to his disciples of how to tell the true Christian (the righteous) from the damned unbeliever just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He said the way you could tell the righteous from the damned was by whether they fed the hungry, gave something to drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, and visited the prisoner (Matthew 25:37).

Clearly, Americans don't practice this who profess to be Christians. Our soldiers are in Iraq, at the orders of the president, making people hungry, depriving them of safe water, not clothing them, treating them as the enemy, and torturing prisoners. Real Christians? Not on your life. They are phony Christians. And where do the phony Christians go? They will go away to eternal punishment according to Jesus.

Of course, FoxNews was the source of this dastardly deed against US Senator Obama. Just like TASS and Pravda was to the former USSR, FoxNews is the mouthpiece for the GOP here in America. Most FoxNews viewers are dumb, dumber, and the dumbest group of voters in America. FoxNews is the propoganda machine for that VastRightWingConspiracy!

Instead of attacking Obama, why don't you lemmings reject the "Queen" your "media masters" over at the Democrat Misinformation Media Machine have selected for you? How's it feel to support someone that polls of her fellow DEMOCRATS say can't be trusted to tell the truth? Just like the Dems, they get a candidate with a little class, and they attack him on religious grounds. LMAO at you sheep. Why choose a uniter when we can return to the politics of demonization and division for America? Hahahahah.

Most FoxNews viewers are dumb, dumber, and the dumbest group of voters in America.

The "hanging chad" IQ of about 2 above plant life voters don't watch Fox News. Those lemmings are in your party. You can denounce the intelligence of the right-wing and republican voters all day long, but when the rubber meets the road, it's your people who were so dumb they couldn't figure how to punch out a chad to actually cast a vote. Our people didn't have trouble with it.